Nick Dearden: I am Nick Dearden, Director of Global Justice Now.

Nick Ashton-Hart: Thank you for inviting me—this is a first for me. To answer the first question, it depends very much on whether it is in the interests of the counterparties to those agreements to roll them over without modification. Since those agreements were created for a number of member states other than just us, those partner countries will go through a process of evaluating the net trade benefit to them of applying those terms to us alone. Where they have an interest in changing the terms to their benefit, they will seek to do so, because that is what trade ministries do—they seek economic benefit for their country, and they expect you to seek it for yours. Unless the trade benefits for them are exactly the same for us alone as they are for 28 other countries, they are going to ask for changes in their interests.
If the shoe were on the other foot, I suspect we can all imagine that it would be hard for our trade Ministry officials to come to you all and say, “Well, we have just copied an agreement with a large trading bloc for one country’s benefit because it is in a hurry.” I suspect we will find that this will take some time—trade agreements always do.

Nick Dearden: There are various ways in which you could do it. One of the ways is to have a committee set up particularly to scrutinise the Government on this. When the time comes to enter negotiations on a deal, it will discuss with the Government what their priorities are and they will say, “We think this is acceptable and this is not acceptable.” It will be brought in from the very beginning.
I think that is important, because the Secretary of State has said a number of times, “I really want to avoid a TTIP-style situation, where we end up with a deal in discussion that has lost public support and lost a lot of parliamentary support.” To do that, we must have that buy-in from the very beginning, and that must require some degree of parliamentary discussion about what the objectives for this country should be in a trade deal with country X.

Barry Gardiner: Q  You were talking about the way in which other countries do the preparation of mandate and scrutiny of the process of creating a trade agreement. I wonder whether perhaps Nick Ashton-Hart could talk about the system in Australia and how the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties does it—or perhaps the system in Germany. Could one of you could talk about that?

Nick Ashton-Hart: Several. I think first for the agreements you wish to transition you would look at the net economic benefit of transitioning them. You would then have to look at what likely changes the other party would be asking for—they would be doing the same analysis—and what changes you would ask for. You have to assume the worst. You have to assume the other party is going to ask for changes, and you have to assume that you will need to ask for some also. If you get lucky and you do not have to do any of that, that is great, but you cannot do this on hope. You have to do it on the worst-case scenario.
I think at that point you would have to bring in stakeholders to help you make that analysis. The expertise to do this is not all in government. It never is. It is also in the private sector and in academia. At the point where you had that you would know the basis on which you were transitioning the arrangements. This is not a trivial undertaking. Because of the regulatory impacts that newer deals, especially, have, you would also have to look at the consequences of certain changes to other arrangements.
For example, if there are most-favoured nation clauses in a deal that you wish to transition, as there often are, and if any changes are made to that arrangement when you transition it, it can impact all the other deals that have MFN clauses. This is now being discussed publicly, related to whether the EU could do an expanded services deal with us, and who would automatically get the benefits of it. For example, a Canadian deal would provide that the EU would have to give the benefits they give us to several other parties, Japan and Canada included.
We are in the same situation because there are MFN clauses in these agreements that we wish to transition, so you have to analyse the net economic benefit to you of the deal in question, but also the consequences of any changes to other deals that you want to transition, because you can guarantee that, for any MFN clause in any other deal, the parties that you are going to negotiate with will be looking at what you are giving in these other discussions and of course expecting to receive them also.
There is a good reason why trade arrangements are slow, and there are not many going at one time. It is because this is an enormous number of moving parts to try to manage at one go—for us but also for the other  Trade Ministries, because deals with us are not the only deals that they have going or that they are working on. If I were you, I would be asking the Ministry: “Look, what is your plan for dealing with these different eventualities?”

Barry Gardiner: Q  Indeed, but we have the need for speed. We do not want to gum things up. We want this to be done as quickly as possible, but that may not happen. Knowing that we are between a rock and a hard place in terms of time, other counties might see a negotiating advantage and an opportunity to press their case. Is that not the case?

Christopher Howarth: The countries that the European Union has agreements with—South Korea, South Africa, Mexico—are major trading partners. Something that has not been mentioned so far is the plurilateral World Trade Organisation Government procurement agreement, which gives British businesses access to over £1 trillion of Government contracts around the world. As a liberal country that tends to accept contracts from other countries, it is important that we get reciprocal rights for British businesses to other countries. Remaining part of that plurilateral agreement, which the Bill allows, would be important for British businesses when seeking Government contracts abroad.

Nick Ashton-Hart: I am not really an expert in how the Australian Government do their consultations, so I cannot describe them in detail. I can describe how the trade officials who I deal with view them. From my conversations with trade officials over the past six or seven years, most of them find the oversight process challenging. The Australians are no exception to that.
For example, in the discussions on the flow of data that have taken place at the WTO and in the trade in services agreement negotiation, of which Australia is a part and which the US and Australia created, a significant portion of all the issues that delayed all the services parts—all the digital elements—of TISA were related to the flow of data and to the Australian negotiators’ view of what they could get their oversight processes to consent to in relation to it. A comprehensive change to their data protection regulation came into force about four years ago, and its structure made it impossible to evaluate how it would work in a plurilateral context because of how it applied liability when private information was given to non-nationals. That meant that they were  unable to make an offer or respond to other offers for a considerable period of time—about 18 months, I think—as a result of their oversight process at home. That was in relation to just one part of the plurilateral negotiation.
That example has held true. I have seen it happen with probably half a dozen countries on various issues over time. If there is a political problem in one area, it generally gums up everything else because it is often not convenient for you to say, “I have a problem in Parliament at home, so I cannot talk to you about x and y.” Instead, you would say, “We are still consulting on that.” Meanwhile, you will ask for something impossibly difficult, knowing that the other party will then get stuck. Once your problem goes away, you can withdraw the thing that causing things to stick over here, because this is the political economy. You do not want to be negotiating on your weaknesses. You want to negotiate on someone else’s, so you have to create them if you have a negotiating bloc.

Nick Ashton-Hart: It depends very much on the nature of the deal in question and how recent they are. All the deals tend to be more focused on tariffs and the like, whereas it is somewhat simpler. Where it involves services, yes, even though these agreements are in force now, as was explained, you still have to accept that what France wanted from that deal when it was negotiated, what Germany wanted, what we wanted: these are not the same as what we and the other party want now. There are things such as protections for certain industries that we do not protect, but the other party will say, “Can we take that out?” and we might say, “Okay, but then we want this over here.”
Human nature is such that, if you are given a chance to negotiate on something and it is of serious monetary value, you are going to ask for a better deal than you got last time. If we buy cars, we do this. We don’t go and buy the car and say, “We will pay full price”—although some people might—or a house or the like. Countries do not do this. So you have to assume that normal human behaviour is not going to be thrown out of the window simply because we are in a hurry to transition our arrangements over to someone else. You have to assume that human nature will still apply and the other country is still going to behave as a rational negotiating partner, which is to seek their advantage from our need for speed.
The only way then to proceed is to say, “Okay, let’s look at these deals as they apply to us now and let’s consider: what is the other side likely to ask for? What is it in their interests to ask for and is it in our interests to agree to it, because it is expeditious, or because it is in our interests, or both?” You have to treat this as a negotiation, not as a replication.

May I interrupt to welcome Tony Burke, who is the assistant general-secretary of Unite the Union? We are very grateful to you.

James Ashton-Bell: I struggle to understand how any Government, engaging in trade policy, be it at multilateral or bilateral level, would be able to get the best possible outcome for that negotiation unless it was using the full strength of its economy, pooling from the best minds that exist within and outside Government.

James Ashton-Bell: I take a slightly different view. As to what is in the Bill at present, our internal analysis of the Trade Remedies Authority is that there is a fundamental question, and we are looking for an answer to it: that question is about who makes the ultimate decisions about when to take action and when not to take action.
Having an independent organisation to advise on the data that exists—or does not exist, in many cases—is useful. The EU has found time and again that it does not have access to the kind of data information it needs to draw the kinds of concrete conclusions that it would like to draw. Given that scenario, it is useful to have an independent organisation to make those choices and to be clear about what information is and is not there.
When you have things like the economic interest test that is currently being floated as part of this authority, which in essence allows for the identification of particularly problematic trade behaviour from a third country and for it not be actioned by the Government or authority, it means that there will be a decision at some point not to take action. If there is not enough information, then that in itself becomes a subjective decision about which parts of the economy are worth protecting using these particular tools, and it is argued that, if a subjective decision is going to be made, then it needs to most certainly be made by a Minister who is accountable for making those choices.

Tony Burke: Right from the get-go, the Manufacturing Trade Alliance, which consists of three trade unions and a number of trade associations including UK Steel, chemicals industries and ceramics among others, pressed strongly to get a trade remedies clause or a structure in there. We were able to put forward our proposals in advance of the discussions taking place at this level. One of the things that we would say from the trade union point of view is that it is absolutely essential that the TRA has a trade union voice—a worker’s voice—on it, particularly at non-executive level. We should also obviously be subject to International Labour Organisation conventions that protect workers in that remedies arrangement. We are supported by the employers on this. From our point of view, the situation in Unite is that we have many members in manufacturing who have suffered at the hands of dumping: steel, tyres, ceramic, chemicals and pharma. It is a big concern for us. We would see that we need a remedies authority that is transparent, and that has trade union and employer representation. At the end of the day, Parliament has to have consent over any decisions made.

Tony Burke: I think we would agree with everything that was said about the make-up of the board. It has to be wide-ranging and it has to have expertise. On the point you raised: when we put our evidence in from  the Manufacturing Trade Alliance—industry and the unions—we wanted a system that worked. Don’t forget, we have not done this for a long, long time. We needed to make sure that we got it right. There were some folks’ voices saying, “Let’s have a fast-track. Look at America, it takes a long, long time”. We said, “No, if you do fast-track, you could get it wrong”. You need to have a system that works, step by step, but is widely consulted on, as has been said.
We may have problems in a particular industry, where we have to bring expertise in and we need to have people in that discussion at the remedies authority who know  exactly what they are talking about and are able to demonstrate it. They can be very complex. When we look at the US system, it takes a very long time and moves very slowly. We do not want to rush it, but we need something that works and is as wide as possible. As I said earlier, I do not think impartiality comes into it, providing there was oversight from Parliament.

Faisal Rashid: Q  I understand there were 60,000 responses to the consultation. The Trade White Paper was published the day after the consultation closed. I apologise if I am wrong, but I think you said earlier that you were quite comfortable with the process. Do you think it is practical and do you think the consultation feedback from the stakeholders has been taken into account?

Chris Southworth: I have a difficult situation, which is a real one: the market status of China. That was very live last year or the year before. You have a classic situation there where we clearly want to be supportive to China as it comes on board as a global leader. China itself knows perfectly well that it wants to wind down steel production and that it is over-producing, but you cannot just wind down the Chinese economy overnight—that will take 10 years to do, as Europe did with its mountains in the past.
Where is the balance? In the meantime, the impact is on steel communities in the UK, across Europe and other parts of the world—we are not on our own—but who decides what that balance is? There is an implication either way on either the political relationship with China and supporting the Chinese economy, or local communities here in the UK. Someone has to come down and say, “Okay, this is where we are going to be.” That may potentially evolve: you may want to take several positions of a period of time so that you get to the end goal that you collectively want, but that must involve the people who will be impacted by those decisions.

James Ashton-Bell: I agree with that. We do not have a defined position as an organisation on this, but I would say that we do have a defined position that trade, industrial strategy and your wider domestic agenda are inherently linked and should never been seen as running in parallel or separate. Given those concerns, we would say that you would never take a decision on anything to do with trade defences without taking into account every impact on your wider economy before making that choice.

Alan Brown: Q  Chris, earlier on you made comments that said that if you are part of the devolved Governments, you would have concerns about their voices being heard and taken account of. Both the Scottish and Welsh Governments have expressed concerns that, at the moment, they are seeing the withholding of the legislative consent motion. When they are asked as to their representation on the Trade Remedies Authority, do you agree that would be a good starting point?

James Ashton-Bell: I do not believe the Bill as a vehicle can deliver a good Brexit in any scenario. There are too many Bills and pieces of legislation that are   necessary to deliver a good Brexit. This is one piece of the puzzle. There is a lot of detail that is not in here. Our position is not necessarily that that has to be in here. There are other pieces, like the consultation issue, that we believe need to be formalised in legislation. That could happen at a later date.
Our concern is that to deliver a good Brexit we are going to have so many pieces of legislation in a very truncated period of time. A lot of pressure will be put on Parliament to rush through legislation without properly scrutinising it, or legislation will not make it through. Either way, we get a bad outcome. Our question comes back to the one I started with. If there are essential elements for your trade policy, if not in this Bill, why not, because you have it in front of the House anyway?

Adjournment till this day at Two o’clock.